Should I Return "500" or "404" if a Requested Image is not Found?

Posted by Michael Robinson on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Michael Robinson
Published on 2010-05-23T15:45:36Z Indexed on 2010/05/23 15:50 UTC
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http-status-code-404

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http-status-code-500

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http-headers

I work with code written by other people, occasionally I am left somewhat confused and at these times Stack Overflow saves me. Please, save me again.

Our site allows people to upload images and later embed them within text in our site like so:

<img src="http://site.com/image_script.php?p=some_image_identifier"/>

My question is:

If the identifier, "p", does not lead us to an image should the server return "500" or "404"?

I would have thought it should be "404", but that's not what is happening right now.

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